A quick look at a Wii game rack is all it takes to see the problem. You know the titles to look for, the must-plays, the killer apps. But you have to hunt. They’re in there, somewhere, buried amongst the obvious dregs like Carnival Games, Petz Dogz 2, and My Horse and Me. It’s almost a game in itself, only not fun.
Ever since launch, the Nintendo Wii has seen a flash flood of absolute garbage. Cheap TV licenses, multi-platform movie releases and PlayStation 2 ports, all priced at $30 or less. You can find them easily enough, packed tightly into retail shelves, or overflowing in the used section, mixed in with that failure of failures, Red Steel. Finding a Wii can be hard, but finding bad games to play on one isn’t.
So why the metric fuckton of shovelware on the Wii? Who’s to blame? Nintendo itself is at least partly guilty. They’ve licensed everything from Alien Syndrome to Winter Sports, anything in a white box. Some of us remember a time when a Nintendo seal meant something – the holy Seal of Quality, introduced to filter out the techincally poor and tasteless after the Video Game Crash of 1983 (Yeah, it happened, Wiki that shit). Reintroduce the Seal? Wouldn’t be the worst thing Nintendo’s done.
The retailers themselves are also culpable for the flood. The Wii will sell itself on hype alone. But if the customer knows there’s a large library of games to choose from, they’ll keep coming back. So retailers stuff the shelves with every Wii game available, creating the impression of huge choice. Game producers know this, and are met with no resistance when a game goes to retail. As the Wii matures, and better titles become available, the situation will greatly improve. But considering how often better titles come around, that could be awhile.
But beyond licensing and retailers, there’s the big – and slightly ironic – reason the Wii has been drowning in shovelware: its own popularity. That’s right, boys and girls. As far as games go, the Wii is too popular for its own good.
From day one, the Wii was sold out nationwide, and became the unexpected success story of 2007; Nintendo just couldn’t keep up. It created retail price gouging, eBay scams, and most of all, hype. Game developers, initially wary of the Wii, were way out of position when the Wii’s popularity took off. They rushed to develop something, anything, to cash-in on the excitement. Thus we see tons of half-assed mini-game compilations – hey, it worked for WarioWare and WiiPlay, right? And since the Wii is based on the GameCube, a pre-existing platform, development is both cheap and easy.
These cash-in games will sell, too. Mr. Casual Gamer and Mrs. Uneducated Mother can’t tell which titles are worth a damn, and tend to go for the best value (cheapest). A $20 game to keep your kids entertained and quiet is better than a $50 game to do the same thing, after all.
So is the Wii destined to sink under the weight of it’s own shitty games? Of course not, and you need only look at history to see why. Consider the PlayStation 2: Cheap, popular, and buried in mediocrity, but still came out ahead in terms of quality titles. The same goes for the GameCube, notorious for its great first and second-party games, and worthless everything else. Both systems were up to their eject buttons in trash, yet still produced their fair share of decent games. If history does ineed repeat itself, we can expect the Wii to do the same.
But don’t sigh with relief yet, folks. If there’s one thing I want you to take from this post, it’s this: Gaming is a business. Nintendo, by creating enough Grade A games to attract the hardcore gamer, and keeping the pricepoint low enough to attract the casual gamer, has successfully got both markets buying their shit. Gaming is a business, and Nintendo is damn good at it.
As long as gaming is a business, and casual gamers are a market, shovelware will be there. Get used to it.
